As this is mostly inside baseball, we turn to Der Tiger Beat Auf Dem Potomac for the deets:

It’s decision time for the Jan. 6 select committee.

The panel has entered the final phase of its eight-month investigation and is preparing to reveal a swath of evidence to the public in hearings slated to begin sometime in the spring. Its nine members say that hearings will shed new light on Donald Trump’s effort to subvert the 2020 election and to energize the mob that attacked the Capitol.

But as it readies its voluminous findings, committee members are facing a handful of momentous choices about how to close out its probe, as well as what aspects are best left alone.

And then they give us a 5-point, uh, plan? List? Choices? You tell me!

1. Calling Donald Trump: Not if, but when and how
2. Pence’s last Jan. 6 call with Trump
3. Will the Speaker speak?
4. What to do with Mo Brooks and the GOP holdouts
5. Keeping the record open

I guess it is speculation, but boy-howdy, they are promoting it, and that leads us to this speculation:

The leaders of the House committee investigating the Capitol attack have grown divided over whether to make a criminal referral to the Justice Department of former President Donald Trump, even though they have concluded that they have enough evidence to do so.

The debate centers on whether making a referral — a largely symbolic act — would backfire by politically tainting the Justice Department’s expanding investigation into the Jan. 6 assault and what led up to it.

My take is that no matter what the Committee does, the GOP is going to shout that it is a political hit job, so they might as well do the right thing. As we have pointed out before, Federal Grand Jurys have a different evidentiary standard and they accept second-source testimony (and that’s part of not alerting crooks that they are under investigation AND keeping the second-hand witness identity private), so they could subpoena the evidence from the Jan. 6 Committee (or even the members) to testify to determine that there was crime. For all we know, they might already have.

What I’m getting at is that this is not over even when the Committee turns in the report. It doesn’t necessarily end with a whimper.

Things to consider (again, my opinion and in no particular order):

• The DOJ has asked for 100+ new attorneys to investigate/prosecute the Stupid Coup.
• The GOP is completely in the dark about what the Committee has learned as they have no moles on the committee.
• The Committee and the DOJ have been completely leak-proof so far.
• Mark Meadows was referred to the DOJ for Contempt of Congress and has disappeared  —is he singing and is that why the DOJ has not proceeded as they have with Bannon?
• Ali Alexander is cooperating with the DOJ (and he is a key civilian in all the planning and intersects with Ginni Thomas via Groundswell).

There’s probably more I’m forgetting right now, but the point is that there’s a lot of pieces in motion. This thing is far from over.